Finding The Hidden Value Features In Web Hosting

If you are in the market for a website hosting partner, it might surprise you to learn that there are nuances in features that may not become apparent until you get out in the market and start looking.

The so-called ‘hidden value’ features exist because some of the vendors in the market have been in business so long that they already understand any type of need that a customer will potentially have. In general, then, they will build that feature set into the product that you are receiving instead of setting you up with surface features that sound good, but don’t really allow you to get what you need to accomplished without paying extra.

Here are some nuanced features that you can look for when you go out shopping for a website vendor and their hosting services:

Built-in security:

Aside from a security certificate, which is typically available through a special account, most firms that talk about providing security don’t get too detailed when they outline what they provide you with. So to be certain that you are getting what you paid for, be specific in asking questions and building requirements.

At a minimum, if you have a deluxe sharing account, you should be looking for some form of malicious script checking internally on the vendor’s part. You should also ask for a brief description of how they handle your security at their firewall. If they can describe it adequately, you are likely in good hands. Of course, if they can tell you anything about how to mesh your endpoint security with their cloud, it will probably save you time and money as well.

Adequate E-mail:

One of the favorite tactics of some large hosting vendors is to provide you with everything that you could possibly want, except when it comes to e-mail boxes. On that front, you may get 5 or 10 overall, enough to run a small firm with 2 or 3 employees.

So when you are out looking at your options, if you can find options like they have at established vendors like networksolutions.com, which allow you to have 1000’s of e-mail boxes when you sign up, you will create quite a cost savings. After all, each e-mail inbox is run from behind a data center firewall that is far more secure than anything that you could like put together on a reasonable budget inside your offices.

Safe development:

If there is one program that developers demand when they are using a hosting vendor, it is SFTP, a secure form of FTP that lets them ensure that no one is intercepting the code that they are putting into the cloud. Strangely enough, although that capability is available in the base shared hosting package for some vendors, other vendors completely ignore it.

Most vendors don’t advertise whether they have this feature or not, making it somewhat nuanced. The best recommendation is to contact your finalists and ensure that they offer SFTP and other safe development and configuration management options.

Finding a website vendor that has what you are looking for in terms of your requirements can often take a little bit of time because their are nuanced features that require a little bit of investigation. When you do put the time in, you will normally end up more satisified with your choice.